TORONTO, May 22, 2024 – Community science volunteers – laypeople with an interest in bees and conservation – significantly contribute to the scientific knowledge of native bumble bees across Canada and the United States, finds a new study by �첥��Ƶ.

It’s buzz worthy confirmation that community science programs can play an important role in monitoring the changing distributions of bumble bees and more. Community scientists have importantly also detected several at-risk or endangered species in unexpected locations, including the rusty-patched bumble bee and the gypsy cuckoo bumble bee. Trained scientists often haven’t seen some of the bees in years and these sightings can help them keep tabs on the species.

The paper, , was published today in the journal PLOS ONE.

Up to a third of North American bumble bees are in decline, but the why of it is still fuzzy. Knowledge gaps about bumble bee stressors, ranges, population dynamics and preferred plants are prevalent.

“As scientists we really value the contribution of community scientists and the breadth of data they are able to gather, including a wide range of locations and species. As scientists usually lack the resources and time to do this kind of field work over such a large geographic area, it really shines a spotlight on the importance of community science programs,” says lead and corresponding author Victoria MacPhail, who conducted the research as part of her PhD at York’s Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change (EUC).

Through the growing (BBW) program, community scientists have been the eyes on the ground for bee researchers. The volunteers have taken photos of bumble bees from every province, state and territory and upload them through the BBW website along with where they were spotted and plant information if known. Bee taxon experts verify the species of bee.

“The data collected by volunteers through Bumble Bee Watch was surprisingly more plentiful, robust and valuable than anticipated and we rely on that data to add to our current knowledge and to confirm other information,” says MacPhail, who is also a former Bee Ecology, Evolution and Conservation coordinator at York.

MacPhail completed the study along with York Associate Professor of EUC and Senior Endangered Species Conservation Biologist of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation in the United States. They compared BBW data collected by community scientists with the Bumble Bees of North America (BBNA), data collected through traditional scientific methods, for all years available and specifically from 2010 to 2020.

The researchers found the BBW covered as much ground geographically, as the BBNA over all years – 63 provinces, states and territories – and had information on 41 species compared to 48 in the BBNA.

“We found the BBW to be valuable as it bolsters our knowledge about habitat, species associations, distribution, and changes in population size, which helps to inform conservation management for bumble bees.”

Sheila Colla

Looking exclusively at the decade from 2010 to 2020, the BBW had data from an additional four provinces and states, and more information about 13 species than in the BBNA.

In terms of percentages, the BBW contributed 8.5 per cent of overall records, but that increased to more than 25 per cent during the specific decade being studied. Community scientists were able to confirm the prevalence of species as well as inform researchers of which species were inhabiting new locations.

They also contributed ecological information, such as species data for most of the bee species and unique plant genera. Knowing which flowers different types of bumble bees prefer is nothing to sneeze at as it can help prevent habitat loss and inform conservation management.

“While the BBW had fewer bee records than the BBNA database overall, it definitely helps to fill in data gaps and provide new information, and it complements traditional scientific methods,” says Colla. “We found the BBW to be valuable as it bolsters our knowledge about habitat, species associations, distribution, and changes in population size, which helps to inform conservation management for bumble bees.”

In addition, community science programs can bring awareness to the threats facing bumble bees and help mitigate species decline as they are already interested, engaged and documenting bees, their habitats and their locations – buzz pollinating action and ideas.

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�첥��Ƶ researchers examined the early and late life stages of small developing carpenter bees in the presence and absence of maternal care and were surprised by the results.

TORONTO, Sept. 14, 2023 – Most wild bees are solitary, but one tiny species of carpenter bees fastidiously cares for and raises their offspring, an act that translates into huge benefits to the developing bee’s microbiome, development and health, found �첥��Ƶ researchers.

Not unlike the positive effect human mothers can have on their offspring, the maternal care of these carpenter bees (Ceratina calcarata) staves off an overabundance of harmful fungi, bacteria, viruses and parasites in the earliest stage of development.

Without maternal care the pathogen load of these developing bees ballooned – 85 per cent of were fungi, while eight per cent were bacteria – which can impact their microbiome, a critical component of bee health, as well as their development, immune system and gene expression. This can lead, for example, to changes in brain and eye development, and even behaviour. The biggest single fungus found was Aspergillus, known to induce stonebrood disease in honey bees, which mummifies the offspring. In later stages, the lack of care can lead to a reduced microbiome, increasing susceptibility to diseases and poor overall health.

The researchers looked at four overall developmental stages in the life of these carpenter bees starting with the larvae stage both in the presence and absence of maternal care.

“There are fitness affects resulting from these fungal infections. We are documenting the shifts in development, the shifts in disease loads, and it is a big deal because in wild bees there is a lot less known about their disease loads. We are highlighting all of these factors for the first time,” says senior author Sandra Rehan, a professor in York’s Faculty of Science.

The developmental changes sparked by which genes were expressed or supressed, upregulated or downregulated, along with disease loads, depending on the presence or lack of maternal care, created knock-on effects on the microbiome and bee health. These single mothers build one nest a year in the pith of dead plant stems where they give birth and tend to their offspring from spring to as late as fall. Anything that prevents the mother from caring for her young, increases risks of nest predation and parasitism, including excessive pruning of spring and fall stems, and can have huge consequences on their young.

The paper, , was published today in the journal Communications Biology. Lead author Katherine Chau of �첥��Ƶ is a Mitacs Elevate and Weston Family Foundation Microbiome Initiative postdoctoral fellow.

“We found really striking shifts in the earliest stages, which was surprising as we did not expect that stage to be the most significantly changed,” says Chau. “Looking at gene expression of these bees you can see how the slightest dysregulation early in development cascades through their whole formation. It is all interconnected and shows how vital maternal care is in early childhood development.”

This study provides metatranscriptomic insights on the impact of maternal care on developing offspring and a foundational framework for tracking the development of the microbiome. “It is a complex paper that provides layers of data and shows the power of genomics as a tool,” says Rehan. “It allows us to document the interactions between host and environment. I think that is the power of this approach and the new technologies and techniques that we are developing.”

She also hopes it will give people more insight into the hidden life of bees and their vast differences, but also similarities. “Often people see bees as a monolith, but when you understand the complexity of bees and that there are wild bees and managed bees, people are more likely to care about bee diversity,” says Rehan.

Additional authors on the paper are Mariam Shamekh, a former honors thesis student and a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Undergrad Student Research Award recipient and Jesse Huisken, a PhD candidate and a NSERC Postgraduate scholarship recipient.

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During Pollinator Week, �첥��Ƶ bee experts recommend solutions and strategies to help save wild bees across the country

TORONTO, June, 22, 2023 – Canada’s wild pollinators are in decline and without a national pollinator plan, many species could be heading for extinction, like the endangered rusty-patched bumblebee or the , say researchers at �첥��Ƶ.

Although the focus is usually on managed honey bees, unlike wild pollinators, they are not native to Canada, not adapted to this country’s weather or plants and not at-risk of extinction, says the researchers. Wild pollinators are essential to Canada’s economy, food security and ecosystems, but about 30 species, including eight bee species, are listed under Canada’s Species at Risk Act. In the United States alone, non-managed wild pollinators are estimated to provide more than US$3 billion worth in crop pollination.

Because of the urgency, and the multiple and widespread nature of the threats to wild pollinators, Associate Professor of York’s Native Pollinator Research Lab in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change and Postdoctoral Fellow Rachel Nalepa, tapped into the extensive knowledge of pollinator and conservation experts to develop solutions for wild pollinator conservation in Canada, along with a national pollinator framework with a clear set of actions.

“Swift action is needed to protect wild pollinators, which will also benefit the agricultural sector, the environment and build climate change resiliency,” says Colla.

The study, , levers, which involved a series of expert surveys, was published today in the journal FACETS and is accompanied by their pollinator framework – .

“We’ve seen many other countries develop and implement pollinator protection policies, including our neighbours to the south, the US, which have incorporated pollinator protection into their farm bill and that has a lot of resources to go into creating habitat and other kinds of protections for at-risk bees,” says Colla. Belgium, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, France, Mexico, Ireland, Colombia, and Nigeria, and at least 24 other countries, have all adopted national strategies, plans or initiatives.

The researchers’ pollinator framework is a tool to create Canada-wide pollinator policy based on the best available science and expertise, while also highlighting important knowledge gaps, areas for future research. It is based on their study, which generated 83 expert recommended solutions to some of the main threats – habitat loss, pesticides, parasites, non-native species and disease. It also outlines which recommendations are most feasible and which could be implemented immediately.

“The federal government is needed to help standardize and coordinate some national efforts, to set targets and to monitor progress towards those targets and also to provide financial resources and other support to provinces,” says Nalepa.

The goal is to preserve the diversity of Canada’s about 850 wild bee species and other pollinators, to mitigate issues arising from climate change, such as changing precipitation patterns, drought and shifts to their normal ranges, as well as to ensure resources are available for them to thrive, and crops and wildflowers are pollinated.

The use of pesticides is a big threat and there is a need for better risk assessments, a reduction on their reliance for agriculture, but the study’s experts also point to a lack of knowledge about how combinations of pesticides affect wild pollinators.

“In addition, experts wanted to see more financial supports and guidance for agricultural communities as they strive to reduce their pesticide use and also to help growers increase their market access to seeds that haven’t been treated with pesticides,” says Nalepa.

To improve habitat, the framework suggests the creation of corridors to connect habitats and ensure pollinators can move easily between them to forage, overwinter and breed. This could be done by having native plants along roads, train tracks and hydro lines. Habitat could also be created or improved at large industrial sites – landfills, aggregate operations and brownfield areas.

The experts also suggest better tracking, management and disease screening for managed pollinators to help prevent the spread of disease to wild bees or vice versa.

“Although there are some things in the framework that will benefit managed pollinators, really, it’s focussed on conserving wild pollinator species,” says Colla. “What we’ve seen in the scientific literature is that in many cases even when you have honey bees in the system, native bees are doing a lot of the work, or they are more effective and more efficient at pollination.”

In addition, there are some crops that require , where bumble bees create vibrations to dislodge trapped pollen. “Our wild bees and our native plant species have over thousands and thousands of years, and we don’t quite know what will happen to these plants when or if bee species or a handful of them go extinct,” she says.

The take home message, says Nalepa, is that “the , and even though experts stress the need for sustained efforts and systemic changes, there are also actions that we can take that are immediately implementable with just minor tweaks to the programing and legislation that we already have.”

Even without a coordinated, national plan, there are things people can do now, such as minimizing garden clean-up because pollinators often live under leaves, thatched grass and in hollow plant stems, and participating in community science programs like .

Another by Colla and a different team looked at how managed honey bee hives in Toronto negatively impacted some wild bee species.

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TORONTO, May 16, 2023 – Wild bees living in cities like Toronto are facing increased environmental stressors compared to those in rural and even suburban areas, such as more pathogens and parasites, found researchers at �첥��Ƶ.

They also found changes in the microbiomes of wild bees living in densely urban areas and fragmented habitats, which makes it more difficult for the bees to access food sources, ideal nesting areas and mates.

These environmental stressors will likely increase in the future as cities expand and landscapes are reshaped, posing one of the largest threats to the natural ecosystems of wild bees and their biodiversity. Two-thirds of the world’s population are expected to live in cities by 2050.

“Having less connected habitats in dense urban areas not only leads to more inbreeding, so less genetic diversity, but it also creates higher pathogen diversity leaving city bees exposed to more pathogens,” says Corresponding author and Associate Professor of the Faculty of Science, �첥��Ƶ.

The researchers used whole genome sequencing of 180 common carpenter bees – Ceratina calcarata – to look at their population genetics, metagenome and microbiome, as well the impact of environmental stressors across the Greater Toronto Area. These small carpenter bees are wild and native bees, not managed and non-native bees, such as a honeybees.

They also found significant environmental variation in bee microbiomes and nutritional resources even in the absence of genetic differentiation.

“Parasite and pathogen infections in bees are a major driver in global bee population declines and this is further exacerbated by urbanization and a loss of habitat and degraded habitat. There are things, though, that cities could do to help wild bees,” says lead author York PhD student Katherine D. Chau.

“We found the best way to connect bee habitats and create conditions for more genetic diversity is through green spaces, shrubs and scrub. Conservation efforts focussed on retaining and creating these habitat connectors could go a long way toward helping wild bee health.”

Although bees are the most prominent pollinators, cities could impact all insect pollinators, which pollinate more than 87 per cent of flowering plants and 75 per cent of food crops globally. Cities, unlike rural areas, also create an urban heat island effect – higher temperatures in the city than those in the surrounding areas – and this affects flowering times and growing season length. This could lead to flowers, for example, blooming before or after bees are out and foraging.

The higher number of pathogen and parasite infections in urban areas can also be attributed to disease spill over. Because the bees are concentrated in certain areas, infected bees are more likely to contaminate the flowers they visit, which then spreads the infection to the next bee that visits that flower, even across bee species, say the researchers.

“Our research is the first known whole genome sequencing, population genomic and metagenomic study of a wild, solitary bee in an urban context, which looks at the complex relationship between bees, metagenomic interactions and dense urban landscapes,” says Rehan. “This approach provides a tool to assess not only the overall health of wild bees in urban settings but could also be applied across a broad range of wildlife and landscapes.”

Now that several known bee and plant pathogens have been identified in dense urban areas, the researchers say it paves the way for early detection and monitoring of threats to wildlife in cities.

“Future studies should explore the link between reduced genetic diversity and the fitness of wild bees in cities,” says Chau.

The paper, , was published in the journal Global Change Biology.

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TORONTO, May 12, 2023 – With pollinators, like bees, pollinating 87 of 115 leading food crops around the globe, protecting them from further decline is important for humans and ecosystems alike. On World Bee Day, May 20, people’s bee-haviour can go a long way towards providing food and creating and preserving bee habitats. 

�첥��Ƶ’s Centre for Bee Ecology, Evolution and Conservation (BEEc) and its bee researchers can help better understand bees, the risks to their health and what people can do to help.  

"Bees are one of the most important groups of pollinators in the world, yet most people are unaware that we have at least 350 species in the GTA alone,” says BEEc Co-ordinator Victoria MacPhail, who received her PhD at York and can talk about bees and how to grow a pollinator garden. 

Although most people think of honeybees when they think of bees, there are more than 850 wild bees in Canada and 20,000 worldwide who do much of the pollinating. 

To help celebrate bees, BEEc and the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change (EUC) are hosting a , sponsored in part by World Wildlife Fund Canada, to help revitalize York’s Native Plant Garden on Tuesday, May 16, from 2:30 to 5 p.m. Media are invited to the event. 

“The EUC Native Plant Garden is an oasis for bees on our campus, providing food, shelter, and nesting sites throughout the year,” says MacPhail. “At BEEc, we have a wealth of free resources and are happy to chat with people about what they can do to help pollinators – from planting native flowers to advocating for increased protections.” 

The community can learn more about the highly diverse bee species indigenous to Toronto and Southern Ontario at large, as well as the local flora that they depend on for sustenance. As a part of this hands-on learning experience, guests will be able to contribute to the University’s floral biodiversity by helping to remove invasive species that are less conducive to the health of local pollinators and planting new native species in the EUC native garden. 

Examples of bee species that visit the garden range from tiny, smooth, black solitary bees that are only a few millimeters long and can be mistaken for flies or ants, to large, fuzzy bumblebees that can be up to a couple centimeters in size, and whose queens are easily seen this time of year. 

“Toronto's official bee, the green metallic sweat bee, Agapostemon virescens, has already been seen nesting in the garden, and we are confident that the upcoming garden party will help to improve the habitat for it and many other wildlife species,” says MacPhail. 

In other bee news, a to help endow a fund for EUC graduate students studying bees will take place May 17 in Markham, followed by a on May 18 with a particular focus on bee diversity and why, and how, York has one of the world's best collections of bee specimens on the planet. 

Have some buzzworthy questions? Just ask the experts listed below. 

, an expert in wild bee genomics, behaviour and conservation and an associate professor in the Faculty of Science, can talk about: 

• Loss of plant-pollinator networks and how some plants will now bloom too soon or too late for bees that rely on them 

• Are the gut microbiomes of city bees missing key beneficial bacteria? 

• Biodiversity conservation and why it’s important 

• How maternal care of bee offspring has expanded the social life of bees 

• Population and behavioural genomics 

• Climate change, land use change and the effects on bees 

Amro Zayed, an associate professor and expert in honeybee biology and genomics in the Faculty of Science, can talk about the following: 

• How bee genes can determine how bees behave, including how good they are at keeping their hive clean and how well they can survive cold winters 

• Did western honeybees originate in Asia and why is that important to know? 

• How the urban environment can help or hinder bees – think concrete versus green spaces, trees and gardens 

• What’s stressing bumblebees? How scientists are using a conservation genomic approach and next generation sequencing to look inside for pathogens and pesticides 

• Why are African hybrid honeybees (known as killer honeybees) highly defensive and aggressive? 

• Bee health diagnostic tools, what they do and what’s being developed 

 
Sheila Colla (via Zoom) of the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, co-author of the recent book, and , can discuss the following: 

• What to plant on balconies, in yards and community gardens across Ontario (See ) 

• How bee diversity is important for climate resiliency 

• Connection between native plants and native pollinators 

• Importance of citizen science – how people can help scientists keep track of bees and their habitats 

• What happened to the Rusty-patched bumblebee and why it’s a tale of what could happen to other bees 

• Other bees on the endangered list 

• Beyond honeybees and bumble bees. What are sweat bees, carpenter bees and mining bees, and what role do they play? 

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TORONTO, October 28, 2020 – How well do you know your bees? �첥��Ƶ researchers have found bee knowledge in Canada lacking with about half of those surveyed thinking honey bees are wild and native to Canada.

They’re not. They were brought over from Europe and are managed by beekeepers like other farm animals, such as dairy cattle for example, but researchers did find it is the bee species best known to the Canadians.

The researchers analyzed material from an Oraclepoll of 2,000 people across the country on general bee facts and conservation conducted by Friends of the Earth. Some participants thought queen bees and drone bees were a species of bee. They are castes within a species, rather than a species.

“The reason for analyzing the survey results in detail is we really wanted to understand the Canadian public’s overall general knowledge of bees, their perceptions of bees and the threats they face,” says lead researcher Nyssa van Vierssen Trip, a grad student in the .

The findings could have a trickle-down effect on conservation.

“It’s important because to increase legal protections for bees, we need to understand how the public sees them. If there is support for bee conservation among the public, then it would be easier for politicians to take action,” says Assistant Professor , whose lab the research was done in.

About 30 per cent of participants, were able to correctly name the bumble bee as a wild native bee species, but only one respondent named a solitary been, in this case a mason bee. Solitary bees, however, make up the majority of wild native bee species in this country. There are 900 native bee species in Canada. Forty-six species are bumble bees of which one-quarter are at risk of extinction across North America.

“Friends of the Earth Canada initially conducted the poll to understand the level of support from Canadians for protecting wild, native bees and their understanding of these species,” says its CEO, Beatrice Olivastri. “The analysis of the poll results by researchers from �첥��Ƶ adds weight to the interpretation of these findings and increases their utility for scientists and government officials. We believe Canadians will support new measures to protect wild, native bees beyond protection for those already at risk.”

Can honey bees replace wild bees as crop pollinators? Two-thirds of respondents didn’t know the answer. About a quarter thought all bees can sting, whereas out of the about 860 native bee species in Canada many do not sting.

“There is a real need to work with the public and educate them about Canada native wild bee species,” says Colla. “Almost one quarter of those surveyed didn’t know how they could help bee conservation, while close to 20 per cent didn’t think it was a personal priority.”

When it comes to political stripes, researchers found that which federal party participants voted for predicted their concern for bee health and conservation. Respondents who voted for the federal Green Party or the New Democratic Party were more likely to believe climate change, disease, modern intensive agriculture, and habitat loss were threats to bees than Conservative Party voters. Green Party voters were also 3.78 times more likely to express high levels of concern for bee health.

Overall, though, there was a general level of concern for bee health despite political affiliation with pesticides topping the list of the most likely threat with 89 per cent of participants choosing that, followed by 70 per cent thinking loss of floral resources was the biggest threat. Only 66 per cent said climate change.

There were also regional differences. While most Canadians want the provincial and federal governments to take the lead in bee conservation, people in Manitoba and Saskatchewan were more likely to see bee conservation as the responsibility of homeowners and landowners.

But as van Vierssen Trip says, “What we found, is that despite people’s general knowledge about native wild bees being low, they like bees, they’re interested in bee conservation and there is heavy engagement in this issue.”

The was published this month in the journal Conservation Science and Practice.

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�첥��Ƶ champions new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Our students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Meaningful and sometimes unexpected careers result from cross-disciplinary programming, innovative course design and diverse experiential learning opportunities. York students and graduates push limits, achieve goals and find solutions to the world’s most pressing social challenges, empowered by a strong community that opens minds. �첥��Ƶ is an internationally recognized research university – our 11 faculties and 25 research centres have partnerships with 200+ leading universities worldwide. Located in Toronto, York is the third largest university in Canada, with a strong community of 53,000 students, 7,000 faculty and administrative staff, and more than 300,000 alumni. �첥��Ƶ's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.

Media Contact:

Sandra McLean, �첥��Ƶ Media Relations, 416-272-6317, sandramc@yorku.ca

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TORONTO, July 14, 2020 – Climate change and an increase in disturbed bee habitats from expanding agriculture and development in northeastern North America over the last 30 years are likely responsible for a 94 per cent loss of plant-pollinator networks, �첥��Ƶ researchers found.

The researchers, corresponding author Professor of the Faculty of Science and grad student Minna Mathiasson of the University of New Hampshire, looked at plant-pollinator networks from 125 years ago through present day. The networks are comprised of wild bees and the native plants they historically rely on, although most of those have now been disrupted.

About 30 per cent of plant-pollinator networks were completely lost, which translates to a disappearance of either the bees, the plants or both. In another 64 per cent of the network loss, the wild bees, such as sweat or miner bees, or native plants, such as sumac and willow, are still present in the eco-system, but the bees no longer visit those plants. The association is gone.

The remaining six per cent of the plant-pollinator networks are stable or even thriving with pollinators such as small carpenter bees, which like broken stems for nest making.

“There are several reasons for the losses in the networks. Climate change is likely the biggest driver. We know that over the last 100 years or so annual temperatures have changed by two and a half degrees. This is enough to alter the time when certain native plants bloom,” says Rehan.

“For a bee that’s out for months on end or is a generalist pollinator, this isn’t such a critical mismatch, but for a bee that’s only out for two weeks of the year and only has a few floral hosts, this could be devastating.”

Andrena_vacinia, a miner bee, is one of the declining native bee species

An increase in non-native species of bees and invasive species of plants, which have displaced some of the native species, is another reason for the decline in networks.

“We are getting a lot of invasive species and new records of invasive species every year. This is usually accidentally through trade and through ornamental plants,” says Rehan.

A lot of these bees live in stems, so it’s easy to import plants with non-native bee species without knowing it. “We can actually show routes and means of invasion biology,” she says.

These bees are following shipping routes from one continent to the other around the world, including North America through ornamental plants for our gardens.

The researchers say an increase in habitat restoration and native flowering plants in agricultural landscapes are critical for improving wild bee biodiversity, but also food security for humans.

Bees and other pollinators are worth hundreds of billions of dollars globally by pollinating the crops we eat, and wild bees are at the top of the list believed to pollinate more than 87 per cent or 308,006 flowering plant species. Many of these are economically important commercial crops, such as apples and blueberries.

“There is an urgent need to gain a deeper understanding of the environmental circumstances affecting these wild pollinator populations and their specialised, evolutionary relationships with plant communities,” says Rehan. “Plant pollinator webs are dependent on changes in the landscape, so knowing how these networks are shaped is important for all regional habitats.”

Previous recent research by Rehan and team looked at 119 wild bee species over 125 years and found 14 declining and eight increasing species. All of the wild bee species in decline are native and over half experienced significant range (latitude and elevation) shifts.

The research, “,” was published in the journal Insect Conservation and Diversity.

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�첥��Ƶ champions new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Our students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Meaningful and sometimes unexpected careers result from cross-disciplinary programming, innovative course design and diverse experiential learning opportunities. York students and graduates push limits, achieve goals and find solutions to the world’s most pressing social challenges, empowered by a strong community that opens minds. �첥��Ƶ is an internationally recognized research university – our 11 faculties and 25 research centres have partnerships with 200+ leading universities worldwide. Located in Toronto, York is the third largest university in Canada, with a strong community of 53,000 students, 7,000 faculty and administrative staff, and more than 300,000 alumni. �첥��Ƶ's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.

Media Contact:

Sandra McLean, �첥��Ƶ Media Relations, 416-272-6317, sandramc@yorku.ca

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TORONTO, June 30, 2020 – Researchers from disciplines across �첥��Ƶ, including biologists, social scientists and mathematicians, will develop a hive of research when York’s new (BEEc) becomes an Organized Research Unit (ORU) starting July 1.

The Senate of �첥��Ƶ approved the move earlier this year to make BEEc the University’s 26th ORU, enabling it to dive deeper into the crisis affecting the health and decline of bees globally.

“�첥��Ƶ’s ORUs have a strong history of highly innovative and collaborative research,” said Vice-President Research & Innovation Amir Asif. “Steeped in York’s tradition of collegial interdisciplinarity, ORUs serve as synergistic hubs for participatory research programs that bring together expertise from across disciplines.”

The new ORU will provide a place where experts can collaborate on innovative, cutting-edge research on bees to help further knowledge, train future leaders in the field, educate the public and affect policy that will make a difference for pollinators locally, as well as globally.

“We are thrilled that our proposal was approved by Senate. The bee crisis is multidimensional and there is no simple solution. BEEc will allow us to bring talented biologists and mathematicians, but also engineers, social scientists and economists to help us answer the big questions in the field,” says Amro Zayed, research chair in Genomics and BEEc director.

BEEc researchers will study the health, behaviour, biodiversity, genomics and conservation of bees, with the goal of enhancing their long-term sustainability, and that of the important crops and plants that rely on bees for pollination.

Meet some of the core researchers:

Associate of the Faculty of Science uses genomics to understand why native bees and honey bees are declining, and develops tools to circumvent these declines.

Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Environmental Studies researches native bees to find out why they’re in decline and develops conservation efforts with a special focus on at-risk bumblebees.

Professor , a Distinguished Research Professor, studies native bees and is constantly contributing new species records to the global list of over 20,300 species. He has built and continues to maintain the largest Canadian collection of bees, currently estimated at over 500,000 specimens from all over the globe.

Professor of the Faculty of Science is an expert on social insect genomics and pollinator health combining molecular evolution, behavioural ecology, population genetics, and phylogenetics to understand the sociobiology, biogeography, nutritional requirements, and sustainability of bees.

Professor of the Faculty of Science and director of York’s Centre for Disease Modelling is applying her modelling skills to help understand how pathogens and pests affect colony health.

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�첥��Ƶ champions new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Our students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Meaningful and sometimes unexpected careers result from cross-disciplinary programming, innovative course design and diverse experiential learning opportunities. York students and graduates push limits, achieve goals and find solutions to the world’s most pressing social challenges, empowered by a strong community that opens minds. �첥��Ƶ is an internationally recognized research university – our 11 faculties and 25 research centres have partnerships with 200+ leading universities worldwide. Located in Toronto, York is the third largest university in Canada, with a strong community of 53,000 students, 7,000 faculty and administrative staff, and more than 300,000 alumni. �첥��Ƶ's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.

Media Contact:

Sandra McLean, �첥��Ƶ Media Relations, 416-272-6317, sandramc@yorku.ca

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